"Between them, the nine new billionaires have a combined net wealth of 16 billion euros, enough to fully vaccinate all people in low-income countries 1.3 times," the People's Vaccine Alliance said in a statement.
The alliance, a network of organisations and activists campaigning for an end to property rights and patents for inoculations, said its figures were based on the Forbes Rich List data.
"These billionaires are the human face of the huge profits many pharmaceutical corporations are making from the monopoly they hold on these vaccines," said Anna Marriott from charity Oxfam, which is part of the alliance.
Peter Kamalingin, Oxfam’s Pan Africa program director, said giving Africa access to COVID-19 vaccines and technology is key. https://t.co/m6gweC5UaP
— Oxfam International (@Oxfam) May 18, 2021
In addition to the new mega-rich, eight existing billionaires have seen their combined wealth increase by nearly 40 billion euros thanks to the vaccine rollout, the alliance said.
Moderna, BioNTech bosses top the list
Topping the list of new vaccine billionaires are the CEO of Moderna Stephane Bancel, and his BioNTech counterpart Ugur Sahin.
Three other neobillionaires are co-founders of the Chinese vaccine company CanSino Biologics.
The research comes ahead of the G20 Global Health Summit to be published on Friday. There have been growing calls to temporarily remove intellectual property protections on Covid-19 vaccines.
Proponents say doing so would boost production in developing countries and address the dramatic inequity in access.
The Biden administration in the US , as well as influential figures like Catholic Church leader Pope Francis, back the idea of a global waiver on patent protections.
Macron calls for an end to constraints
At a Paris summit seeking to boost financial aid for Africa in the face of the pandemic on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron called for the removal of "all these constraints in terms of intellectual property which blocks the production of certain types of vaccines".
The European Commission said Wednesday it would be a "constructive" voice in WTO talks on the issue.
"The highly effective vaccines we have are thanks to massive amounts of taxpayers' money, so it can't be fair that private individuals are cashing in while hundreds of millions face second and third waves completely unprotected," said Heidi Chow, Senior Policy and Campaigns Manager at Global Justice Now, which helped analyse the billionaire data.
The protests at @AstraZeneca organised by @globaljusticeuk this week were not 'absurd'
— Heidi Chow (@hidschow) May 13, 2021
Check out this thread to find out why 👇👇👇 https://t.co/3Hl2gto7HH
"As thousands of people die each day in India, it is utterly repugnant... to put the interests of the billionaire owners of Big Pharma ahead of the desperate needs of millions," she added.
Manufacturers have stressed that patent protection is not the limiting factor in ramping up vaccine production.
They say a wide range of issues -- from the set up of manufacturing sites, to the sourcing of raw materials, to the availability of qualified personnel -- are holding up the manufacturing process.
